THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


Or  that  the  past  will  always  win 
A  glory  from  its  being  far. 

From  art,  from  nature,  from  the  schools 
Let  random  influences  glance. 


THE  SEVEN  FACTORS 

OF 

EDUCATION 


BY 

HENRY   FAIRFIELD   OSBORN 

LL.  D.  TRINITY,  LL.  D.  PRINCETON,  D.  Sc.  CAMBRIDGE  ;   DA  COSTA  PROFESSOR  OF 
ZOOLOGY  IN  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 


Reprinted  from  EDUCATIONAL  REVIEW,  New  York,  June,  1906. 


THE   MEtSHON    COMPANY    PRESS 
RAHWAY,    M.    J. 


Ed. /Psych. 
Library 

L.& 


VI 


"  Produce  !  Produce  !  "  exclaims  Teufelsdrockh  in  Sartor  resartus, 
"  Were  it  but  the  pitifullest  infinitesimal  fraction  of  a  product,  produce  it, 
in  God's  name  !  Tis  the  utmost  thou  hast  in  thee  :  out  with  it,  then." 


THE    CONDITIONS 

Many  years  ago  I  was  profoundly  impressed  in  reading  for 
the  first  time  Ruskin's  Seven  lamps  of  architecture,  as  setting 
forth  the  universal  illuminants  of  architecture,  the  architecture 
of  all  time  and  of  every  people. 

Am  I  too  venturesome  to  enter  an  arena  so  warmly  contested 
as  that  of  modern  teaching  and  endeavor  to  determine  whether 
there  are  also  universal  illuminants  which  lighten  the  way  to 
the  perfect  training  of  the  mind?  Is  there  in  education,  as  in 
architecture,  an  absolute  code  derived  from  the  intellectual 
experience  of  generations  of  thinkers,  a  code  for  every  subject, 
for  all  time,  and  for  every  people?  Or  is  the  general  revolt 
from  authority,  which  is  the  most  conspicuous  tendency  of 
our  times,  to  leave  education  also  without  the  sanction  of 
experience  ? 

I  was  drawn  to  these  questions :  first,  by  consciousness  of 
somewhat  cloudy  thought  in  the  matter,  consoled  only  by  signs 
of  similar  cloudiness  in  others;  second,  by  rising  indignation 
against  the  apparent  infection  of  education  in  this  country 
with  certain  material  and  experimental  tendencies,  as  if  from 
the  contamination  of  a  triumphantly  successful  commercial 
age. 

My  inquiry  has  not  resulted  in  the  discovery  of  new  laws. 
Separately,  the  illuminants  of  education  are  as  near  and 
familiar  parts  of  our  intellectual  inheritance  as  collectively  they 


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2  Educational  Review  [June 

are  far  from  lighting  the  long  and  often  obscure  paths  of  the 
average  teacher.  Few  perceive  with  the  clear  vision  of  post- 
humous critics  and  biographers  that  the  over-cultivation  of  one 
or  more  of  the  factors  distinguishes  the  ill-balanced  from  the 
well-balanced  mind,  the  inefficient  from  the  efficient  student. 
From  the  broad  standpoint  of  symmetry,  many  very  learned 
men,  as  well  as  many  great  observers,  are  alike  imperfectly 
educated,  and  for  this  their  guides  and  masters,  in  part  at  least, 
may  be  held  responsible.  One  work  I  have  studied,  by  a  man 
of  high  authority,  omits  all  reference  to  what  I  regard  as  the 
supreme  factor  of  education. 

My  inquisitive  route  is  one  of  observation,  rather  than  of 
theory ;  it  follows  the  lives  of  men,  rather  than  the  ways  of  the 
books.  Consider  Huxley,  altho  not  the  most  creative  thinker,  as 
the  best  pattern  of  the  educated  Englishman  of  the  last  century, 
and,  carefully  observing  the  gradual  attainment  of  his  perfect 
discipline,  we  find  it  arose  less  thru  his  teachers  than  thru  his 
own  discernment  of  the  collective  and  cumulative  value  of 
several  educational  factors  and  his  deliberate  purpose  to  experi- 
ence them  all,  so  far  as  lay  in  his  power.  Pasteur,  guided  by  a 
similar  instinct,  actually  resisted  the  advice  of  some  of  his 
professors.  Similarly,  we  observe  the  superb  education  of 
Darwin  and  of  Spencer  as  chiefly  a  self-schooling  growing  out 
of  the  consciousness  of  certain  intellectual  wants,  such  mental 
appetite,  and  the  determination  to  satisfy  it,  being  one  of  the 
symptoms  of  greatness. 

From  such  biographies,  from  the  actual  methods  of  the  great 
teachers,  it  appears  that  there  are  universal  illuminants,  that 
there  is  an  absolute  code  by  which  to  develop  the  infinitesimal, 
as  well  as  the  almost  infinite,  powers  of  the  human  mind. 

The  material  and  experimental  spirit  in  America 

In  contemporary  American  life  there  are  two  currents  which 
are  setting  away  from,  rather  than  toward  a  clearer  perception 
of  the  "  universal  "  in  education — these  are  our  materialism 
and  our  experimentalism.  Much  of  the  material  spirit  undeni- 
ably pervades  our  college  halls  and  mars  the  otherwise  splendid 


1906]  The  seven  factors  of  education  3 

progress  of  educational  idealism  in  this  country;  computers  are 
heralding  great  gifts  and  statistical  increases  in  which  numbers 
are  swelled  by  summer  schools,  by  dental,  veterinary,  and  mis- 
cellaneous departments,  as  if  to  maintain  prestige  on  a  dis- 
tinctively quantitative,  rather  than  on  a  qualitative,  basis. 

Experimentalism  is  partly  an  intruder  from  our  material 
atmosphere,  partly  an  offspring  of  the  general  revolt  from 
authority. 

It  is  a  truism  of  trade  that  our  manufacturers  owe  a  large 
measure  of  their  supremacy  to  their  readiness  to  abandon  old 
machinerv  and  substitute  new.  It  is  as  much  an  American 

J 

instinct  to  welcome  change  as  it  is  an  English  instinct  to  shrink 
from  it.  Was  not  the  manufacturers'  spirit  more  or  less  per- 
vasive in  the  Boston  meeting  of  the  National  Educational 
Association  of  1903, x  when  the  prolonged  debate  was  sum- 
marized, with  some  irony  and  much  truth,  in  the  statement 
that  from  electives  and  courses  we  are  to  pass  to  experiments 
with  curriculums  as  a  whole,  and  with  the  period  of  studies  on 
a  grand  scale;  in  other  words,  that  the  colleges  shall  compete 
in  the  cultivation  of  brains  after  different  fashions,  just  as 
rival  furnaces  are  competing  and  experimenting  in  the  pro- 
duction of  steel;  that  we  are  to  witness  the  survival  of  the 
fittest  institution,  which  shall  turn  out  the  largest  quantity  of 
the  best  product  in  the  shortest  possible  time,  and  thus  most 
thoroly  exemplify  the  spirit  of  American  trade. 

Confused  by  the  tremendous  inrush  of  new  knowledge,  we 
have  already  been  experimenting  for  some  years  past.  Perhaps 
our  impulse  for  facile  modification  and  adaptation  is  nowhere 
more  conspicuous  than  in  the  rapid  movements  of  these 
decades,  prompted  by  the  fallacy  of  regarding  change  as 
identical  with  progress,  and  ignoring  the  fundamental  evolu- 
tionary law  that  change  is  as  often  retrogressive  as  progressive. 
It  is  quite  possible,  not  to  say  probable,  that  many  of  the  sweep- 
ing alterations  which  have  taken  place,  and  are  now  contem- 

1  "  The  length  of  the  college  course  and  its  relation  to  the  professional  schools." 
Papers  read  before  the  Department  of  Higher  Education  of  the  National  Educa- 
tional Association  at  Boston,  Mass.,  July  7,  1903,  EuucATiOiNAL  REVIEW,  New 
York,  September,  1903 


4  Educational  Review  I  June 

plated,  are  distinct  retrogressions,  and  will  remove  us  farther 
and  farther  from  solid  intellectual  advance;  that  they  conform 
to  the  commercial  spirit,  rather  than  transform  it;  that  some 
of  our  ablest  educators  have  been  unwittingly  contributing  to  a 
backward  movement  by  failing  to  grasp  clearly  in  their  own 
minds,  or  to  set  clearly  before  the  nation,  the  slow  and  difficult 
steps  which  are  necessary  to  teach  men  how  to  think  and  how 
to  produce. 

Consider  the  case  of  the  college.  It  is  generally,  but  not 
altogether,  fairly  alleged  that  it  is  a  patient,  that  it  is  a  sick 
organism,  even  that  it  has  reached  a  condition  which  may  be 
regarded  as  useless.  Remedies  are  being  administered,  not 
from  any  very  clear  system  of  educational  therapeutics,  but  on 
the  rule  that  when  one  tonic  fails  another  shall  be  given  trial. 
A  cupping  process  or  drawing  blood  is  suggested ;  one  presi- 
dential doctor  prescribes  four  years  of  life,  another  allows  three 
years,  another  two;  another  proposes  to  cut  short  life  alto- 
gether, predicting  the  extinction  of  the  college  and  the  direct 
passage  from  the  high  school  to  the  university. 

Extinction  is  the  reductio  ad  absiirdum.  Such  an  end  to 
experimentalism  would  be  a  national  calamity,  because  schools 
can  never  equal  colleges,  either  in  resources  or  in  fitting  for 
citizenship;  because  the  longer  period  of  the  education  of  the 
larger  number  would  fall  into  the  hands  of  women  teachers, 
who  are  constantly  multiplying  in  the  public  schools;  because 
the  democratic  social  spirit,  so  vital  to  the  college,  is  fatal  to  the 
university,  the  future  triumph  of  which  depends  chiefly  upon 
the  enforcement  of  the  idea  that  here  belong  exclusively  the 
young  intellectual  aristocracy  of  the  country. 

Even  abbreviation  may  be  another  instance  of  failure  to  dis- 
tinguish between  progressive  and  retrogressive  evolution.  If 
a  year  be  cut  from  the  college  to  adjust  the  year  which  has  been 
added  to  the  school  by  belated  entrance  or  advancing  standards 
of  admission,  the  net  result  is  to  substitute  a  year  or  two  of 
school  life  for  a  year  of  college  life.  Is  this  a  progressive 
change?  Is  not  a  college  year  rich  in  historical  associations, 
teaching  capacity,  libraries,  laboratories,  museums,  and  all  the 
other  products  of  generous  endowment  of  more  value  than  a 


1906]  The  seven  factors  of  education  5 

school  year?  Similarly,  if  learning  or  the  acquisition  of  gen- 
eral knowledge  remains  in  fashion  even  by  apology  as  a  specific 
function  of  the  college,  does  not  the  prodigious  intellectual 
advance  of  the  nineteenth  century  tend  to  lengthen,  rather  than 
shorten,  the  college  course  of  the  twentieth  century  ?  If  the  col- 
lege period  is  to  be  changed,  would  not  a  consistent  movement 
be  the  opposite  of  an  abbreviation?  Would  it  not  be  for  the 
more  effective  school,  the  earlier  admission  to  college  ?  I  do  not 
pretend  to  settle  2  this  very  difficult  question,  but  only  to  put 
it  in  the  light  of  an  evolution  problem. 

The  friends  of  the  patient  advance  the  traditional  plea  that 
the  college  is  to  be  preserved  as  the  home  of  "  liberal  culture  " 
— a  laudable  reason  for  prolonged  life,  which,  however,  con- 
tains an  element  of  indefiniteness.  Here  we  approach  a  more 
rational  diagnosis  of  the  disorder,  which,  in  itself,  suggests  a 
remedy.  Liberal  culture,  for  what  end  or  purpose,  one  may 
ask?  Is  not  this  lack  of  purpose,  this  dysteleology,  to  borrow 
an  Haeckelism,  the  internal  disorder  which  has  bred  the  patho- 
logical condition  of  the  college  during  the  very  years  when  the 
university  and  the  technical  school  have  flourished  like  green 
bay  trees? 

Refreshing  definiteness  of  purpose  in  training  for  material 
production  is  the  invigorating  principle  of  the  technical  schools 
which  show  no  signs  of  internal  disorder  or  degeneration,  and 
as  to  the  utility  of  which  there  is  no  question.  No  one  proposes 
to  cut  their  periods  from  four  years  to  three,  or  to  two,  or  to 

*  My  personal  opinion  may,  however,  be  stated  that  economy  and  careful  adjust- 
ment of  time  should  begin  in  the  school  years  where  the  vista  of  life  seems  so  long 
that  the  value  of  time  is  not  appreciated  ;  that  early  waste  of  time  should  not  be 
compensated  for  by  the  abbreviation  of  the  real  preliminary  culture  period  of 
college  life.  If  we  are  to  experiment,  therefore,  let  us  try  the  experiment  of  thoro- 
ness  of  education.  If  one  student  is  so  clever  as  to  acquire  in  two  or  three  years 
what  another  does  in  four,  let  him  profit  by  making  his  work  broader  and 
more  intense.  We  shall  at  least  be  on  the  side  of  the  method  which  has  led  to  the 
best  creative  work  in  all  time.  If  the  American  college  disappears  in  the  struggle 
for  existence  between  the  high  school,  the  technical  scientific  school,  and  the  uni- 
versity, it  will  not  be  because  it  deserves  to  disappear,  but  because  the  men  at  the 
helm  of  college  education  have  no  clear  conception  of  what  they  are  aiming  to 
accomplish  and  are  trying  fortuitous  experiments  in  quantitative  matters  of  sub- 
jects, hours,  days,  and  months,  instead  of  reforming  the  quality  and  standard  of 
the  work  accomplished. 


6  Educational  Review  [June 

eliminate  these  schools  altogether;  they  have  their  weaknesses, 
but  no  one  charges  them  with  dysteleology.  Similarly,  produc- 
tion in  the  form  of  original  research  is  the  definite  ideal  of  the 
American  universities.  This  ideal  was  first  embodied  among 
us  in  the  early  years  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  University,  when, 
with  an  assemblage  of  gifted  teachers,  and  with  the  flower  of 
American  students,  the  average  results  thruout  all  the  depart- 
ments were  commensurate  with  the  best  attained  anywhere,  and 
at  once  spread  thruout  the  world  the  new  and  momentous  fact 
that  America  could  establish  and  maintain  a  university.  Such 
an  ideal  is,  however,  not  maintained,  chiefly  because  the  Ameri- 
can university  at  present  rests  upon  the  insecure  foundation 
sands  of  superficial  college  work. 

It  was  my  privilege  recently,  in  one  of  the  most  imposing  of 
academic  processions,  to  walk  beside  a  profound  student  of 
international  law.  I  could  not  help  feeling  the  lack  of  propor- 
tion between  the  form  and  the  substance,  the  flowery  display 
of  hoods  and  gowns,  and  the  productive  scholarship  actually 
represented.  "  How  can  we  live  up  to  these  brilliant  colors?  " 
I  observed  to  my  companion.  "  How  can  we  be  as  learned  as 
we  appear?"  Raising  his  hand  above  his  head,  he  jokingly 
replied,  "  By  putting  the  dollars  up  there,  by  making  the 
teaching  profession  more  of  an  object."  This  partly  jesting 
and  partly  truthful  answer  did  not  include  all  the  reasons  why 
American  intellectual  production  has  not  reached  the  general 
grade  of  that  of  the  old  world,  and  if  I  have  spoken  of  the 
college,  of  the  school,  of  the  university  as  separate,  I  have 
misled — there  can  be  no  discontinuity. 

A  serious  answer  to  this  jesting  question  would  be  that  we 
shall  be  as  learned  as  we  appear  in  America  when,  not  only  in 
university,  but  in  school  and  college,  we  reach  a  perfectly  clear 
understanding  of  and  unite  our  energies  in  the  chief  object  of 
education,  namely:  the  inculcation  of  those  factors  which, 
according  to  the  several  abilities  and  predispositions  of  men, 
culminate  in  the  several  forms  of  productive  activity. 

Production  is  conceived,  with  Carlyle,  as  a  man's  output,  as 
the  utmost  he  has  in  him,  his  resourcefulness,  his  centrifugal, 
rather  than  centripetal  life;  in  its  highest  form  his  creative 


1906]  The  seven  factors  of  education  7 

power.  If  training  for  production  vitalizes  the  technical 
schools,  if  it  is  the  ideal  of  our  universities,  is  it  not  evident 
that  such  training,  in  the  broader  sense,  is  the  restorative  prin- 
ciple of  the  American  college ;  that  the  collegiate  antidote  is  not 
to  be  found  in  further  experimentation,  in  lengthening  or 
shortening  periods,  in  eliminating  Greek  or  mathematics,  or 
any  other  difficult  subjects,  in  a  rigid  required  system,  or  in  a 
universal  elective  system,  nor  even  in  inducing  men  to  think 
and  study  by  means  of  a  preceptoral  system,  admirable  as  it 
may  prove  to  be;  but  that  the  elusive  remedy  is  rather  to  be 
sought  in  the  application  of  a  basal  or  universal  working  theory 
of  education  ? 

In  such  a  theory,  we  are  first  to  substitute  the  newer  centrifu- 
gal ideal  of  production  for  the  older  centripetal  ideal  of  liberal 
culture.  Liberal  culture,  that  indefinable  quality  imparted  by 
learning  multiplied  by  the  sense  of  beauty,  is  to  be  the  stepping 
stone ;  it  is  to  be  the  obligato  or  running  accompaniment,  rather 
than  the  solo ;  it  is  to  be  the  stage,  rather  than  the  summation. 
Second,  we  are  to  ascertain  in  what  sense,  in  what  measure,  and 
by  what  means  the  college  may  range  itself  with  the  polytechni- 
cum  and  the  university  as  a  school  for  training  producers.  Such 
training  is  a  very  serious  undertaking;  if  there  is  any  field  of 
human  activity  in  which  it  is  light  or  easy,  I  do  not  know  of  it, 
but  rather  contend  from  the  precept  and  example  of  my  chief 
masters,  McCosh,  Huxley,  and  Balfour,  and  from  the  much 
more  exacting  master,  experience,  that  the  road  from  nothing 
to  culture,  and  from  culture  to  the  point  where  man  produces 
anything  of  the  least  value,  is  an  extremely  long  and  hard  one. 

I  contend  that  some  of  our  leading  educators  in  the  Boston 
convention  of  1903  were  hastening  the  tide  of  American  haste 
and  superficiality,  instead  of  sternly  telling  that  great  assem- 
blage of  teachers  of  the  nation  some  unpalatable  truths  as  to 
our  still  subordinate  position  among  the  thinking  producers 
of  the  world. 

If  we  are  to  direct  education  thruout  into  the  original,  the 
creative,  rather  than  into  the  receptive,  the  absorbent,  the 
critical  temper  of  medievalism,  I  do  not  know  how  we  can 
more  clearly  introduce  its  relation  to  our  school  and  college  life 


8  Educational  Review  [June 

and  to  the  further  elevation  of  our  university  life  than  by  a 
series  of  contrasts,  which  will  lead  the  way  back  to  the  main 
question :  as  to  what  are  the  factors  of  education,  which  culmi- 
nate in  production? 

Modern  mediccvalism  and  true  modernism ' 

"  The  mediaeval  university,"  observed  one  of  the  greatest  teachers  of  the 
last  century,  "  looked  backwards  ;  it  professed  to  be  a  storehouse  of  old 
knowledge,  and  except  in  the  way  of  dialectic  cobweb-spinning,  its  pro- 
fessors had  nothing  to  do  with  novelties.  Of  the  historical  and  physical 
(natural)  sciences,  of  criticism  and  laboratory  practice  it  knew  nothing. 
Oral  teaching  was  of  supreme  importance  on  account  of  the  cost  and 
rarity  of  manuscripts.  The  modern  university  looks  forward,  and  is  a 
factory  of  new  knowledge  ;  its  professors  have  to  be  at  the  top  of  the  wave 
of  progress.  Research  and  criticism  must  be  in  the  breath  of  their  nostrils  ; 
laboratory  work  the  main  business  of  the  scientific  student ;  books  his 
main  helpers.  .  .  The  cardinal  fact  in  the  university  question  appears  to 
me  to  be  this  :  That  the  student  to  whose  wants  the  mediaeval  university 
was  adjusted  looked  to  the  past  and  sought  book  learning,  while  the 
modern  looks  to  the  future  and  seeks  the  knowledge  of  things." — HUXLEY. 

What  is  medievalism  ?  Is  it  not  surviving  in  the  methods 
proposed  and  continued  in  some  of  the  most  modern  profes- 
sional systems?  I  am  inclined  to  answer  the  second  question 
in  the  affirmative. 

We  should  not,  for  a  moment,  fall  into  the  almost  universal 
error  of  confusing  mediaeval  ism  in  education  with  classicism, 
an  error  which  has  been  widely  disseminated  by  such  brilliant 
and  effective  essays  as  Adams's  A  college  fetish. 

Greece  and  Rome  illustrate  the  distinction.  The  relatively 
non-productive  Romans  were  partially  mediaeval.  Rome,  eco- 
nomically, and,  in  a  large  measure,  intellectually  and  artistic- 
ally a  parasitic  or  centripetal  state,  \vas  supported  by  phenom- 
enal military  genius  and  genuine  centrifugal  or  constructive 
powers  in  law  and  government.  Not  so  with  highly  centrifugal 
Greece.  Greek  supremacy  was  no  accident :  it  was  due  to  great 
educational  conceptions  applied  to  a  people  purified  by  race 
culture  and  selection. 

1  The  main  ideas  of  the  present  article  were  worked  out  and  privately  printed  in 
1002  under  the  title  "  The  mediaeval  and  the  true  modern  spirit  of  education." 


1906]  The  seven  factors  of  education  9 

In  education,  Socrates,  Plato,  Aristotle  were  eminently  men 
of  their  period,  or  moderns,  as  we  learn  from  their  frequently 
reiterated  views.  It  will  be  recalled  that  the  Socratic  solution 
of  the  educational  problem  was  that  the  new  state  of  society 
was  to  be  based  on  knowledge,  that  the  germs  of  knowledge 
were  inherent  in  every  human  being,  by  virtue  of  his  own 
experience,  and  that  these  germs  could  be  developed  by  the 
dialectic  process.  The  whole  bent  of  Socrates  as  a  teacher  was 
the  cultivation  of  originality.  His  rule  that,  to  educate  a 
youth,  the  less  we  think  for  him  and  the  more  he  thinks  for 
himself,  the  better,  is  the  root  of  the  true  modern  spirit, 
because  it  is  the  first  step  toward  production.  Louis  Agassiz 
professedly  adopted  the  Socratic  method  in  teaching  zoology, 
and  Huxley's  method  was  largely  Socratic.  Plato  observed : 
"  We  next  come  to  arithmetic,  geometry,  and  astronomy  ...  all 
citizens  shall  learn  the  rudiments  of  these  sciences,  not  because 
of  the  necessities  of  practical  life  [a  word  for  our  most  prac- 
tical schools],  but  because  these  are  endowments  belonging  to 
the  divine  nature.  By  a  good  method,  the  teaching  of  these 
sciences  may  be  made  attractive  and  interesting,  so  that  no 
force  may  be  required  to  compel  youth  to  learn."  Inspiration, 
sequence  in  the  development  of  body,  mind,  and  soul  were 
Plato's  modes  of  training  the  young  citizen,  while  his  curricu- 
lum was  surprisingly  similar  to  that  of  our  older  colleges. 

Unfortunately,  there  is  preserved  only  a  fragment  of  Aris- 
totle's writings  on  the  art  of  teaching,  our  knowledge  of  his 
opinions  on  the  development  of  the  mind  being  largely  infer- 
ential from  his  works  and  from  his  intellectual  ideals.  If  these 
great  Greeks  had  recommended  the  youth  of  their  country 
to  devote  ten  of  the  formative  years  of  their  lives,  first,  to  the 
Mycenaean  language  and  culture,  and,  second,  to  the  Egyptian 
and  Mesopotamian  languages  and  cultures,  then  the  few  who 
still  maintain  that  our  modern  youth  should  largely  devote  the 
formative  period  of  their  minds  to  ancient  languages  might 
rightfully  claim  to  be  classicists. 

If  there  is  such  classical  authority  for  the  anticlassical  move- 
ment, it  does  not  follow  that  the  elimination  of  the  substance 
has  eliminated  the  spirit  of  medisevalism  from  among  the  anti- 


io  Educational  Review  [June 

classicists.  The  true  classicist  may  be  one  who  follows  most 
closely  the  highest  classical  models,  and  these  were  certainly 
the  models  of  the  Greeks,  both  in  their  methods  and  in  their 
achievements.  The  Greeks  will  be  modern  for  all  time,  and  are 
still  to  be  studied  for  the  truest  modern  ideals,  for  ideals  which 
resulted  in  the  most  remarkable  achievements  in  the  way  of 
centrifugal  life  that  the  world  has  known,  considering  always 
the  period  and  the  infantile  state  of  knowledge.  While  antici- 
pating us  in  the  sciences,  in  the  extraordinary  development  of 
mathematics,  in  the  discovery  of  the  evolution  theory,  they 
gave  ethics,  philosophy,  literature,  and  science  their  foundation 
stones.  The  destruction  of  the  Greek  intellectual  movement  by 
political,  moral,  and  social  decay,  and  by  the  loss  of  numerical 
and  military  supremacy,  set  the  intellectual  progress  of  the 
world  back  two  thousand  years. 

With  the  centrifugal  Greek  spirit,  contrast  the  centripetalism 
of  the  old  educators  in  their  renaissance  of  classical  learning, 
impelled  partly  by  the  extraordinary  intrinsic  or  inherent  force 
in  such  fragments  of  this  learning  as  remained;  consider  their 
sedentary  life,  absorbed  in  poring  over  and  discussing  what 
Aristotle  and  Pliny  had  to  say  about  the  world,  rather  than  in 
travel  and  exploration  of  their  own;  contrast  their  scrutiny  of 
the  books  of  the  ancients,  rather  than  the  book  of  Nature  her- 
self; their  compilations  in  natural  history  with  their  dearth  of 
observation  of  the  objects  about  them,  of  the  birds,  the  fishes, 
flowers,  and  even  of  human  society. 

This  very  over-valuation  of  classical  literature  and  science 
inevitably  brought  the  reaction  of  the  great  "  observing  cen- 
tury "  which  has  just  passed;  a  reaction  partly  ending  in  a 
false  modernism,  however,  which  may  have  exceeded  the  Ifrnits 
prescribed  by  the  truest  modern  spirit.  While  we  may  abandon 
the  claims  for  the  classics  of  "  superior  mind-training  value," 
or  of  "  best  conducing  to  a  pure  English  style,"  we  may  adhere 
to  them  as  our  most  highly  perfected  disciplinary  studies,  as 
developing  systematic  thinking,  as  familiarizing  us  with  the 
marvelous  classic  spirit,  as  giving  us  a  sense  of  perspective  and 
proportion  for  our  own  lives  and  times,  as  fundamentally  asso- 
ciated with  the  technical  language  of  biology  and  other  sciences, 


1906]  The  sev eti  factors  of  education  u 

with  all  discoveries  or  centrifugal  work  in  classical  history,  art, 
archaeology,  and  philosophy.  The  question  is  not  as  to  the 
value  of  the  classics,  but  as  to  the  part  they  shall  play  in  the 
educational  period.  Old  Montaigne's  epigram  even  to-day 
most  truly  expresses  the  real  essence  of  the  classical  question : 
"  No  doubt  both  Greek  and  Latin  are  very  great  ornaments 
and  of  very  great  use,  but  we  buy  them  too  dear." 

There  is  also  the  reaction  to  the  "  modern  subject."  In  the 
artillery  fire  against  Latin  and  Greek,  in  the  smoke  and  con- 
fusion about  elective  and  required  courses,  the  impression  is 
abroad  that  the  modern  subject  constitutes  the  essence  of  mod- 
ernism as  opposed  to  medisevalism.  This  is  a  dangerous  half- 
truth,  for,  considering  the  diversity  of  subjects  upon  which  the 
minds  of  great  men  have  been  bred  down  the  ages,  is  it  not 
apparent  that  the  essence  of  the  matter  must  lie  less  in  the 
subject  than  in  the  intellectual  objective  of  the  teacher  and  of 
the  student?  Do  we  not  often  observe  the  modern  languages 
taught  in  a  most  intensely  mediaeval  fashion,  and  the  ancient 
languages  under  a  different  type  of  teacher  as  sources  of  a  most 
modern  spirit?  May  not  the  classics  be  taught  in  such  a  way 
as  to  rapidly  develop  all  the  forces  of  education,  altho  such 
forces  may  be  still  more  rapidly  and  readily  developed  thru  the 
sciences  ?  It  is  not  a  matter  of  fancy,  but  of  fact,  that,  despite 
clear  perception  of  its  special  objective  value,  the  very  teaching 
of  science  itself  is  still  largely  after  the  mediaeval,  dogmatic 
fashion;  and  that  even  the  "verification  of  anatomical  fact" 
method  of  Huxley  has  its  dangers. 

Asymmetry  and  superficiality  are  the  two  words  which  sum 
up  my  criticism  of  our  present  American  education  from  bottom 
to  top.  Swinging  like  a  pendulum,  it  has  lost  some  of  the 
merits  of  mediaevalism,  without  attaining  the  full  advantages 
of  modernism. 

Accepting  the  general  truth  of  Huxley's  brilliant,  if  some- 
what extreme,  contrast  between  the  mediaeval  and  the  modern 
spirit,  as  quoted  above,  we  see  that  professed  modernism  in 
education  still  contains  a  large  admixture  of  medievalism  in 
its  failure  to  develop  the  centrifugal  forces  of  the  mind.  Such 
development  was  the  essence  of  the  Greek  spirit  in  education, 


12  Educational  Review  [June 

yet  the  modern  spirit  emphasizes  even  more  than  the  Greek  the 
relation  to  the  fellovvman,  not  merely  in  the  political,  but  in 
every  aspect.  In  fact,  the  essence  of  this  spirit  is  service;  in 
matters  of  the  mind,  it  is  intellectual  altruism ;  in  education,  it 
is  the  training  of  the  productive  mind. 

II 

THE   ART    OF   THE   TEACHER 

What  are  the  forces  which  are  essential  to  the  productive 
mind,  and  what  educational  theory  is  most  apt  to  develop  them? 

So  far  as  intellectual  progress  is  concerned,  and  I  am  not 
now  discussing  religious,  moral,  or  physical  progress,  the  first 
and  most  fundamental  of  these  forces  are  in  the  nature  of 
canons,  or  standards;  they  lie  in  the  distinction  of  truth  from 
error,  in  the  appreciation  of  beauty  and  fitness,  and  in  the 
application  of  these  standards  to  thought.  Together  with  our 
standards  come  our  sources  of  knowledge,  and  there  arises,  as 
the  first,  that  of  learning  from  the  stores  of  tradition,  from 
books,  and  the  experience  of  man  in  our  own  and  previous 
generations;  there  follows  close,  as  the  distinctively  nineteenth- 
century  source  of  knowledge,  that  of  direct  observation  of 
men  and  of  nature.  Then,  for  the  testing  of  our  knowledge, 
there  is  applied  the  triumphant  crucible  of  human  reason. 
Then  our  standards,  our  knowledge,  and  our  reason  seek 
expression  in  spoken  and  written  language.  Finally,  as  the 
supreme  human,  most  closely  approaching  the  superhuman 
power,  the  six  preceding  forces  lead  to  the  production  of  new 
ideas  and  to  all  the  forms  of  original  activity.  This  is  the 
epitome  at  once  of  the  "  universal,"  both  in  intellect  and  in 
education. 

Truth,  beauty,  learning,  observation,  reason,  expression,  and 
production,  in  their  most  comprehensive  forms,  are  the  seven 
forces  of  progress,  and  the  factors  of  education  are  the  proc- 
esses of  storage  of  these  forces  by  cooperation  of  teacher  and 
student,  the  former  with  his  constantly  diminishing,  the  latter 
with  his  constantly  increasing  responsibility.  The  batteries 
become  ready  to  discharge,  the  potential  intellectual  energies 


1906]  The  seven  factors  of  education  13 

ready  to  be  liberated;  and  the  cunning  business  or  art  of  the 
teacher  consists  in  patience  and  alertness  in  ways,  means,  and 
methods,  in  repairing  or  supplying  deficiencies,  and  discovering 
powers  which  are  never  actually  to  be  idle.  As  Eduard  Suess, 
the  distinguished  Austrian  geologist,  recently  observed  in  his 
farewell  lecture :  "And  now  I  have  reached  the  comma.  When  I 
became  a  teacher,  I  did  not  cease  to  be  a  student ;  and  now  that 
I  cease  to  be  a  teacher,  I  shall  not  cease  to  be  a  student,  as 
long  as  my  eyes  see,  my  ears  hear,  and  my  hands  can  grasp. 
With  this  wish,  I  do  not  step  out,  but  take  up  my  former 
position." 

Looking  for  a  moment  to  our  social  obligations,  it  would 
appear  possible  to  cultivate  the  first  five  of  these  forces  in  a 
monastic  existence  totally  without  benefit  to  one's  fellowmen; 
to  acquire  "  liberal  culture  "  without  effect  or  result,  except 
for  its  possessor;  to  attain  an  individual  mastery  of  truth  and 
beauty,  of  learning,  of  observation,  and  of  reasoning  as  purely 
receptive  or  centripetal  powers.  In  contrast,  the  last  two  forces 
of  expression  and  production  are  the  centrifugal  applications 
of  knowledge,  by  their  very  terms  altruistic  and  marking  the 
purpose  of  education,  the  service  of  our  fellows  in  commerce, 
in  art,  in  politics,  in  literature,  in  scientific  discovery,  in  every 
form  of  human  activity. 

To  learn  to  produce,  to  be  of  service,  we  must,  with  Huxley, 
discern  to  the  full  the  special  role  of  each  factor  and,  at  the 
same  time,  secure  a  balance.  The  balanced  enforcement  of 
the  heptalogue  is  as  essential  to  the  perfectly  educated  man  as 
the  balanced  working  of  the  great  system  of  organs  is  to  the 
ideal  bodily  development. 

The  attainment  of  symmetry  will  always  baffle  us,  because 
of  the  generally  inborn  or  constitutional  asymmetry  of  mind; 
because  of  the  limitations  and  predispositions  of  pupils  and 
students,  one  having  the  gift  for  truth,  another  for  beauty, 
another  for  learning,  another  for  observation,  another  for 
reason,  another  for  expression,  another  for  creative  production, 
and  the  many  having  no  special  gifts  whatsoever.  Only  rarely 
are  the  largest  number  of  these  gifts  in  the  largest  measure 
combined  in  what  we  call  the  youth  of  genius,  and  only  that 


14  Educational  Review  [June 

educator  will  rightly  serve  his  calling  who  holds  in  his  chari- 
table heart  this  law  of  the  mental  variability  of  the  race,  who 
suspects  the  existence  of  talents  out  of  the  direct  line  of  his  own 
sympathies,  who  hopefully  foresees  that  the  dunce  in  mathe- 
matics may  become  the  brilliant  biologist,  that  the  defective 
memory  may  be  housed  in  the  same  brain  with  the  keen  reason- 
ing power,  that  the  deficient  linguist  may  metamorphose  into 
the  brilliant  observer,  that  the  listless  youth  of  eighteen  may 
exhibit  the  spirit  of  the  daring  explorer  at  thirty,  that  the 
Rowland  who  leaves  the  small  New  England  college  in  disgust 
may  become  the  leading  American  physicist,  that  the  Darwin 
who  loiters  thru  Cambridge  may  revolutionize  the  thought 
of  the  world.  Even  my  own  experience  with  students  yields 
instances  of  an  inborn  predilection  for  a  certain  subject  work- 
ing a  marvelous  metempsychosis.  A  careless  student,  in  the 
search  for  an  elective  involving  the  irreducible  minimum  of 
effort,  perhaps  by  the  toss  of  a  coin,  elects  a  subject  which, 
because  of  an  atavistic,  tho  previously  unsuspected,  impulse, 
fascinates  and  transforms  him  for  life.  Herein  lies  often  the 
failure  of  the  more  rigid  and  restricted  curriculum,  and  the 
success  of  the  miscellaneous  fire  of  many  electives  or  aimless 
discontinuity  of  studies,  that  among  the  repeated  shots  one 
may  hit  the  bull's-eye  of  intellectual  predisposition,  and  thus 
discover  the  man. 

By  focusing  our  attention  upon  each  in  turn  in  the  light  of 
the  wisdom  of  our  own  and  preceding  centuries,  we  may  best 
discover  the  special  parts  played  by  each  of  the  seven  factors 
of  education,  individually  ineffective,  collectively  an  irresistible 
power. 

Factors  of  truth  and  beauty 

"  Again,  many  of  you  think  it  is  not  only  a  waste  of  time  but  a  positive 
sin  to  read  novels  and  poetry  and  general  literature,  to  cultivate  in  any 
way  the  imagination,  to  take  an  interest  in  painting  or  sculpture  or  music. 
You  have  yet  to  learn  that  altho  parrots  and  other  imitative  animals  can 
get  on  without  imagination,  there  is  no  such  thing  in  existence  as  an  un- 
imaginative scientific  man.  That  you  have  some  imagination  and  individu- 
ality is  evidenced  by  your  differentiation  from  all  other  students  of  science 
classes;  but  have  you  these  well  developed,  and  have  you  those  other 


1906]  The  seven  factors  of  education  15 

qualities  which  are  absolutely  necessary  for  the  success  of  a  scientific 
worker?  Imagination  is  far  and  away  the  most  important  ;  but  there  are 
also  judgment  and  common  sense,  and  the  love  of  truth  and  the  power  of 
self-sacrifice,  which  seem  always  to  accompany  the  pursuit  of  science."4 

The  divine  order  of  truth  and  beauty,  as  conceived  by  Plato, 
is  at  the  foundation  of  all  things  and  forms  the  soul  of  educa- 
tion, for  a  truthless  education  is  fruitless,  and  an  education 
without  the  sense  of  beauty  and  harmony  fails,  both  of  its 
imaginative  elements  and  of  its  full  effect  on  other  men.  The 
inspiration  of  these  standards  and  basal  guiding  qualities  is 
thru  religion,  the  study  of  the  beauty  and  harmony  of 
nature,  of  classical  and  modern  literature,  of  art,  led  by  the 
personal  influence  of  men  of  culture  and  productive  capacity. 

Intellectual  virtue,  the  truth  canon,  the  first  ingredient  of 
education,  must  be  derived  from  some  source  or  other.  Virtue 
and  knowledge  do  not  necessarily  run  on  all  fours,  many  con- 
spicuous instances  could  be  cited  of  their  absolute  divorce,  and, 
with  Huxley  in  his  Romanes  lecture,  I  am  not  hopeful  of 
deriving  moral  qualities  from  the  study  of  pure  science.  Such 
virtues  are  often  derivable  from  religious  ideals,  but  this  is 
certainly  not  universally  the  case,  because  of  the  large  ingre- 
dient of  faith  in  religion. 

It  is  aside  from  our  present  path  to  consider  whether  the 
aesthetic  factor  was  more,  or  less,  appreciated  by  medisevalists 
than  by  moderns.  The  art  spirit  has  certainly  suffered  a  decline 
since  the  Renaissance;  the  spirit  of  the  Florentines  was  most 
nearly  a  revival  of  the  Greek  spirit  which  the  world  has  seen. 
The  sense  of  the  beautiful,  combined  with  the  appreciation  of 
natural  law,  as  manifested  in  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  enters  into 
scientific,  no  less  than  into  artistic  education,  and  the  cultivation 
of  the  imagination  is  as  much  the  constructive  basis  of  the 
physical  sciences  as  of  literature. 

In  the  relative  spheres  of  the  essential  union  or  separateness 
of  ethical  and  aesthetic  cultivation,  we  are  again  on  debatable 
ground,  as  will  be  readily  seen  from  the  comparison  of  the 
Latin  environment,  abounding  from  childhood  in  aesthetic  cul- 
tivation, while,  perhaps,  less  insistent  upon  the  element  of 

4  Inaugural  address  of  Professor  John  Perry,  Nature,  October  23,  1902,  p.  645. 


16  Educational  Review 

truth,  with  the  German,  English,  and  American,  in  short,  with 
Teutonic  environment  relatively  deficient  in  the  sense  of  beauty, 
while,  perhaps  more  insistent  on  the  element  of  truth. 

The  factor  of  learning 

"  With  this  close  hold  upon  practical  life  and  this  constant  interest  in  the 
politics  of  the  world,  especially  of  England  and  the  United  States,  no  one 
could  be  less  like  that  cloistered  student  who  is  commonly  taken  as  the 
typical  man  of  learning.  But  Lord  Acton  was  a  miracle  of  learning.  Of 
the  sciences  of  nature  and  their  practical  applications  in  the  arts  he  had 
indeed  no  more  knowledge  than  any  cultivated  man  of  the  world  is  expected 
to  possess.  But  of  all  the  so-called  '  human  subjects '  his  mastery  was 
unequaled.  Learning  was  the  business  of  his  life.  He  was  gifted  with  a 
singularly  tenacious  memory  .  .  .  the  passion  for  acquiring  knowledge 
which  his  German  education  had  fostered  ended  by  becoming  a  snare  for 
him,  because  it  checked  his  productive  powers.  It  absorbed  so  much  of 
his  time  that  little  was  left  for  literary  composition.  It  made  him  think 
that  he  could  not  write  on  a  subject  till  he  had  read  everything,  or  nearly 
everything,  that  others  had  written  about  it."  6 

The  middle  centuries  were  distinctively  the  period  of  learn- 
ing ;  the  great  and  enduring  contribution  of  mediaevalism  to  the 
world  and  to  modern  education  was  its  insatiable  thirst  for 
information,  for  knowledge  of  the  achievements  of  man,  as  set 
forth  in  books  and  book  lore;  for  literature,  and  for  the  tradi- 
tional science  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans.  As  Harris  aptly 
expressed  it,  "  thru  learning,  we  stand  on  the  shoulders  of  all 
previous  generations,"  and,  figuratively  speaking,  the  survival 
of  mediaevalism  is  only  to  be  deplored  in  the  one  great  feature 
of  its  faith,  that  a  secure  position  on  other  men's  shoulders  is 
of  paramount  importance  and  constitutes  an  end,  rather  than 
a  beginning  and  an  accompaniment,  of  education. 

The  learned  attitude  is  naturally  the  historian's  attitude 
toward  education.  We  have  cited  above  the  late  Lord  Acton 
as  a  modern  medievalist  of  the  highest  type,  of  vast  learning, 
of  limited  production,  as  a  storage  battery  which  rarely  dis- 
charged, as  a  life  illuminating  our  present  contention.  By 
way  of  contrast  to  Acton  may  be  instanced,  among  historians, 
our  own  Fiske,  Browning,  Tennyson,  Victor  Hugo,  and,  above 

'Special  correspondence  of  the  Evening  post,  London,  June  23,  1902;  the 
Evening  post,  Friday,  July  18,  1903. 


1906]  The  seven  factors  of  education  17 

all,  Balzac,  as  pouring  the  forces  of  learning  into  expression, 
into  the  conversations,  debates,  and  discussions  of  their  men 
and  women,  or  into  the  pages  of  history.  In  his  brief,  but 
great,  preface  to  Pere  Goriot,  in  which  Balzac  lays  bare  the 
whole  philosophy  of  la  comedie  humaine,  he  shows  thoro  con- 
versance with  the  whole  biological  movement  of  his  times, 
beginning  with  Buffon  of  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
and  ending  with  the  famous  discussions  between  Cuvier  and 
St.  Hilaire  of  the  early  nineteenth — all  a  matter  of  pure  and 
well-digested  learning.  It  may  be  said  that  his  works  fairly 
bristle  with  learning  and  knowledge,  and  that  acquisition  was 
one  of  the  great  elements  of  his  genius.  Similarly,  Tennyson's 
In  memoriam  shows  a  remarkable  comprehension  of  modern 
biology,  in  its  many  more  open  and  more  subtle  allusions  to 
evolution  and  heredity. 

Our  shelves  are  loaded  with  the  books  of  unlearned  men. 
I  have  in  mind  two  remarkably  original  works  of  recent  times ; 
they  have  justly  brought  their  authors  great  renown,  yet  they 
both  fail  at  the  critical  point,  where  the  authors  extend  from 
their  specialties  and  attempt  to  reach  out  for  broader  conclu- 
sions in  neighboring  fields  of  knowledge — conclusions  which 
are  rendered  totally  invalid,  almost  ridiculous,  thru  deficiency 
in  biological  and  anthropological  learning. 

Learning  necessarily  occupies  a  vast  amount  of  time,  and  it 
is  a  false  modernism  which  depreciates  its  place  in  education. 
How  near-sighted  are  certain  reactions  against  it ;  how  absurd 
the  fads  of  certain  ultra-modern  schools;  how  out  of  time  the 
premature  exclusive  specialization ;  how  inadequate  the  extreme 
laboratory  system ;  even  in  the  university,  how  futile  to  attempt 
to  educate  exclusively  thru  research. 

As  Emerson  observes :  Whatever  force  may  have  compelled 
us  to  education,  we  are  always  gravitating  back  to  learning,  to 
the  accumulated  knowledge  of  our  subject,  and  this  is  one  of 
the  most  striking  phases  in  the  self-education  of  men.  We 
recall  that  Aristotle  opens  every  disquisition  with  a  review  of 
all  that  was  known  and  said  by  his  predecessors,  that  this  is 
the  well-known  method  of  introducing  the  doctorate  thesis  in 
Germany.  We  recall  that  Darwin,  altho  eventually  more 


1 8  Educational  Review  [June 

learned  in  books  than  any  scientific  man  of  his  generation, 
neglected  book  knowledge  while  at  Cambridge,  and,  after  be- 
coming attracted  to  science  by  observation  and  discovering  how 
largely  it  is  necessary  to  draw  from  the  recorded  observations 
of  others,  was  fairly  forced  back  to  book  knowledge.  Fine 
proofs  these,  that  the  teacher  should  fairly  "stoop  to  conquer," 
that  he  should  fascinate  the  student  with  the  spirit  of  some 
principal  subject,  that  interest  once  enlisted,  the  value  and 
necessity  of  book  knowledge  become  apparent. 

The  factor  of  observation 

"You  know  much  of  what  has  been  done,  but  have  you  the  power  to 
discover,  to  add  to  the  world's  knowledge  ?  Your  knowledge  has  been 
derived  from  books  and  lectures  ;  you  have  now  to  learn  that  a  week  in  the 
laboratory,  during  which  you  seem  to  crawl,  during  which  for  examination 
purposes  you  do  less  than  in  reading  ten  lines  of  a  text-book,  is  really  of 
more  value  to  your  scientific  education  than  a  month's  hard  reading.  This 
is  almost  unbelievable  to  you  who  are  such  adepts  in  passing  examinations, 
yet  it  is  quite  true.  Lectures  and  lessons  have  spoon-fed  you  until  now  ; 
lectures  and  lessons  will  in  future  teach  you  to  feed  yourselves."' 

"  But  how  willingly  I  would  as  a  poet  exchange  some  of  this  slumbering, 
ponderous,  helpless  knowledge  of  books,  for  some  experience  of  life  and 
man."  * 

Schopenhauer's  premiss  that  "  All  truth  and  wisdom  lie  ulti- 
mately in  observation,"  we  find  reflected  in  the  lives  of  men  of 
science  and  of  letters — a  very  thirst  for  transition  from  book 
learning  to  original  and  direct  observation  of  men,  of  facts  and 
things,  of  nature,  as  inexhaustible  sources  of  new  knowledge. 
The  reciprocal  relations,  or  the  actions  and  reactions,  between 
learning  and  observation  are  wonderfully  illustrated  in  the  life 
of  Pasteur — the  noblest  scientific  life  recorded.  Again,  when 
young  Ramon  y  Cajal,  while  a  medical  student,  found  in  works 
of  reference  no  citations  from  his  own  countrymen,  he  resolved 
that,  if  it  lay  in  his  power,  at  least  one  Spanish  name  should 
appear  in  the  history  of  medicine  of  the  future  and  remove  the 
reproach  of  Spain.  He  threw  himself  with  ardor,  not  into 
deeper  and  more  extensive  learning,  but  into  the  observation 

'  From  abstract  of  inaugural  address  of  Professor  John  Perry,  Naturt,  October 
23,  1902,  p.  645. 
7  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning  to  Robert  Browning,  March  20,  1845. 


1906]  The  seven  factors  of  education  19 

of  the  nervous  system  by  means  of  a  method  which  had  just 
been  discovered  by  the  Italian  histologist  Golgi,  and  with  such 
success  that  in  the  course  of  a  few  years  every  anatomical 
treatise  quoted  the  brilliant  discoveries  of  Cajal  from  the 
ancient  University  of  Cordova. 

This  truism,  that  the  world  holds  its  own  by  learning,  that  it 
moves  forward  by  observation,  is  the  distinctive  gift  of  the 
scientific  spirit  to  education.  It  has  not  yet  become  a  truism  of 
educational  practice.  Quick  and  keen  in  children,  undoubtedly 
inherited  from  our  very  remote  ancestral  life,  where  powers 
of  observation  were  factors  in  survival,  this  faculty  was  unrec- 
ognized in  the  mediaeval  system  of  education,  and  is  also 
unknown  to  the  college  which  ignores  the  element  of  observa- 
tion in  its  requirements,  both  for  admission  and  for  honors  at 
graduation.  It  is,  therefore,  largely  ignored  in  the  school 
which  prepares  for  the  college — a  condition  of  things  which, 
however,  is  widely  perceived  and  rapidly  being  remedied  in 
the  public  secondary  schools  of  this  country.  Here  I  may 
quote  from  a  noteworthy  recent  address  by  the  headmaster  of 
one  of  the  most  successful  colleges  of  England : 

"A  school  preparation  should  be  of  a  kind  which  will  foster  the  desire  and 
develop  the  power  to  overcome  difficulties  ;  it  should  give  self-reliance  and 
sufficient  knowledge  of  scientific  principles  to  enable  the  pupil  in  after  life 
to  understand  changing  conditions  and  see  their  trend.  Above  all,  school 
work  should  encourage  the  spirit  of  inquiry,  which  finds  delight  in  making 
new  observations  and  experiments  with  whatever  resources  are  available. 
The  principle  upon  which  Humboldt  constructed  Prussian  education  a 
century  ago  was  :  whatever  we  wish  to  see  characteristic  of  our  nation  we 
must  first  implant  in  our  schools.  Assuredly,  if  we  would  prepare  our 
scholars  for  life,  the  supreme  intellectual  preparation  is  found  in  methods 
which  evoke  the  faculty,  the  originality,  the  mental  resourcefulness  of  our 
pupils.  It  is  for  us  to  see  that  the  subjects  and  methods  of  teaching  in  our 
schools  are  such  as  to  promote  the  development  of  these  qualities,  for 
national  progress  depends  upon  them." 

School  and  college  should,  from  the  outset,  foster  this  most 
fertile  of  natural  faculties.  Postponement  of  observation  to 
the  graduate  school,  where  it  naturally  enjoys  its  maximum 
cultivation,  is  a  hazardous  experiment,  because  of  the  law  of 
degeneration  of  unused  mental  powers.  What  we  observe  is 


2O  Educational  Review  [June 

less  vital  than  that  we  do  observe,  and  the  introduction  of 
science  in  the  school  should  be  less  for  knowledge  and  learning 
than  for  facility  in  vision  and  elementary  reasoning.  Observ- 
able material  is  what  is  called  for ;  not  always  the  same  material, 
neither  is  it  necessarily  in  the  scientific ;  it  may  be  in  the  poeti- 
cal, literary,  classical  sphere.  In  the  social  world,  the  young 
observer  is  most  admirably  advised  by  Montaigne : 

"  This  great  world,  which  some  do  yet  multiply  as  several  species  under 
one  genus,  is  the  mirror  wherein  we  are  to  behold  ourselves  ;  to  be  able  to 
know  ourselves  as  we  ought  to  do  in  true  bias.  In  short,  I  would  have 
this  to  be  the  book  my  young  gentleman  should  study  with  the  most 
attention  ...  so  the  several  fragments  he  borrows  from  others,  he  will 
transform  and  shuffle  together  to  compile  work  that  shall  be  absolutely 
his  own  ;  that  is  to  say,  his  judgment,  his  instruction,  labor  and  study,  tend 
to  nothing  else  but  to  form  that.  He  is  not  obliged  to  discover  whence  he 
got  the  materials,  that  have  assisted  him,  but  only  to  produce  what  he  has 
himself  done  with  them." 

The  factor  of  reason 

"  That  man,  I  think,  has  had  a  liberal  education,  who  has  been  so 
trained  in  youth  that  his  body  is  the  ready  servant  of  his  will,  and  does 
with  ease  and  pleasure  all  the  work  that,  as  a  mechanism,  it  is  capable  of ; 
whose  intellect  is  a  clear,  cold,  logic  engine,  with  all  its  parts  of  equal 
strength,  and  in  smooth  working  order ;  ready,  like  a  steam  engine,  to  be 
turned  to  any  kind  of  work,  and  spin  the  gossamers  as  well  as  forge  the 
anchors  of  the  mind  ;  whose  mind  is  stored  with  a  knowledge  of  the  great 
and  fundamental  truths  of  Nature  and  of  the  laws  of  her  operations  ;  one 
who,  no  stunted  ascetic,  is  full  of  life  and  fire,  but  whose  passions  are 
trained  to  come  to  heel  by  a  vigorous  will,  the  servant  of  a  tender  con- 
science; who  has  learned  to  love  all  beauty,  whether  of  nature  or  of  art, 
to  hate  all  vileness,  and  to  respect  others  as  himself." — HUXLEY. 

Reason  is  the  great  asset  of  man.  Granted  the  impulses  of 
beauty,  of  truth,  of  knowledge,  and  of  observation,  there  is 
still  to  be  trained  the  efficient  "  logic  engine  "  of  thought,  so 
wonderfully  pictured  by  Huxley.  George  Meredith  also  speaks 
in  inimitable  style  of  the  relation  of  observation  to  reason  and 
discrimination : 

"  Observers  of  a  gathering  complication  and  a  character  in  action  com- 
monly resemble  gleaners  who  are  intent  only  on  picking  up  the  ears  of 
grain  and  huddling  their  store.  Disinterestedly  or  interestedly  they  wax 
over-eager  for  the  little  trifles,  and  make  too  much  of  them.  Observers 
should  begin  upon  the  precept,  that  not  all  we  see  is  worth  hoarding,  and 


1906]  The  seven  factors  of  education  21 

that  the  things  we  see  are  to  be  weighed  in  the  scale  with  what  we  know 
of  the  situation,  before  we  commit  ourselves  to  a  measurement.  And  they 
may  be  accurate  observers  without  being  good  judges.  They  do  not  think 
so,  and  their  bent  is  to  glean  hurriedly  and  form  conclusions  as  hasty,  when 
their  business  should  be  sift  at  each  step,  and  question." 

'Nature  is  not  over-liberal  with  this  asset;  she  often  richly 
endows  with  all  other  forces  while  most  parsimonious  with 
this.  Two  of  my  older  scientific  colleagues,  most  learned,  most 
gifted  observers,  profound  students,  able  writers,  and  prolific 
producers,  were  yet  almost  devoid  of  the  power  of  sound  logic. 
On  one  occasion,  after  examining  their  joint  advocacy  of  a 
certain  theory,  which  I  myself  strongly  entertained  at  the  time, 
I  could  not  help  remarking,  "  Heaven  preserve  us  from  our 
friends !  "  Scientific  common  sense,  or  the  absence  of  it,  is 
congenital;  it  comes  from  our  forebears  or  from  that  strange 
benefactress — the  saltation  in  heredity. 

If  not  inborn,  this  break  in  the  ranks  must  be  perceived  and, 
so  far  as  possible,  repaired  by  the  teacher,  certainly  one  of  the 
most  difficult,  if  not  most  hopeless,  of  tasks.  The  induction 
into  correct  thinking  is  not  only  in  formal  logic,  in  philosophy, 
in  the  history  of  the  sciences — more  especially  where  taught  by 
personal  contact  and  discussion  between  master  and  student — 
but  in  the  continuous  exercise  or  practice  of  reasoning  by  the 
student  himself,  guided  by  kindly,  but  expert,  criticism  of  the 
master  in  every  branch  of  original  thinking.  Here  is  where 
mathematics  and  the  natural  sciences  make  their  most  effective 
contributions  to  education,  in  affording  the  data  for  reasoning 
from  problem  to  solution,  or  from  cause  to  effect,  in  its  simpler 
forms.  There  is  no  abbreviated  formula  for  reading  nature 
or  men  at  sight:  the  invention  of  the  guesses  that  make  an 
hypothesis,  the  trials  of  the  hypotheses  that  make  a  theory,  and 
the  discarding  of  the  theories  that  fall  for  a  truth ;  in  brief,  the 
unerring  scent  on  the  track  of  new  truth  can  only  be  acquired 
by  the  method  of  trial  and  error,  guided  by  skillful  and  inge- 
nious advice. 

The  factor  of  expression 

"  For  my  part,  I  venture  to  doubt  the  wisdom  of  attempting  to  mold 
one's  style  by  any  other  process  than  that  of  striving  after  the  clear  and 


22  Educational  Review  [June 

forcible  expression  of  definite  conceptions,  in  which  the  Glassian  precept. 
'  First  catch  your  definite  conceptions.'  is  probably  the  most  ^difficult  to 
obey.  Bufc  still,  I  mark  among  distinguished  contemporary  speakers  and 
writers  of  English,  saturated  with  antiquity,  not  a  few  of  whom,  it  seems 
to  me,  the  study  of  Hobbes  might  have  taught  dignity,  of  Swift  concision 
and  clearness,  of  Goldsmith  and  Defoe  simplicity." — HUXLEY. 

"  All  men  stand  in  need  of  expression.  In  love,  in  art,  in  politics,  in  labor, 
in  games,  we  study  to  utter  our  secret.  The  man  is  only  half  himself,  the 
other  half  is  his  expression." — EMERSON. 

Why,  with  Lycidas,  "  shun  delights  and  live  laborious 
days  " ;  why  acquire  the  canons  of  truth  and  taste,  the  famili- 
arity with  achievement,  if  you  cannot  bring  forth  discoveries 
and  ideas  which  may  have  cost  you  an  infinite  amount  of  labor, 
if  you  have  not  the  power  of  expression  in  language,  drawing, 
painting,  sculpture,  architecture,  or  other  forms  of  design? 

While  considering  expression  as  covering  every  form  of 
the  conveyance  of  ideas  to  others — here  we  may  speak  only  of 
the  written  form. 

The  gist  of  Huxley's  famous  sentence,  quoted  above,  is  that 
ideas,  practice,  and  the  native  literature  are  the  three  chief 
factors  in  the  cultivation  of  style.  In  language,  look  to  the 
best  lay  writers  of  England,  to  Huxley  himself,  as  well  as  to 
the  uniformly  fine  style  developed  in  France,  and  avoid  Ger- 
many as  you  would  avoid  a  labyrinth  or  a  quicksand. 

The  mediaeval  spirit  instilled  in  prejudice  to  the  mother 
tongue,  was  manifested  in  the  writing  of  the  Bible  and  all 
works  of  science  in  Latin;  it  survives  in  over-reliance  upon 
Latin  and  Greek  in  the  cultivation  of  the  art  of  expression.  In 
this  day,  when  two  great  exponents  of  English  style,  Huxley, 
with  little  early  classical  training,  and  Tyndall,  chiefly  of 
scientific  education,  stand  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  two  other 
masters  of  prose,  Maurice  and  Goldwin  Smith,  both  of  classical 
education;  when  Darwin  and  Galton  are  models  of  simplicity 
and  clearness,  we  cannot  believe  that  there  can  survive  a  classi- 
cal monopoly  for  the  acquisition  of  style.  Latin  is  said  to  be 
enjoying  a  great  revival  in  the  secondary  schools  of  America, 
but  the  classics,  as  generally  taught  with  us,  fail  to  have 
the  productive  and  constructive  value  in  expression  which  is 
enforced  in  England,  where  style  is  cultivated  and  developed 


1906]  Tlie  seven  factors  of  education  23 

by  a  constant  interchange  of  classical  and  English  expression. 
At  Eton,  for  example,  the  training  culminates  in  the  ability  to 
put  a  Times  editorial  into  Greek  or  Latin.  With  us,  the  chief 
regime  of  classical  preparation  consists  in  translation,  parsing, 
translation;  and  in  truly  mediaeval  spirit  some  of  the  most 
progressive  colleges  have  been  piling  up  "  reading  "  require- 
ments, in  raising  the  standard  of  admission.  As  the  entrance 
examination  approaches,  translation  increases  in  quantity  and 
intensity,  for  two  years  there  is  a  long  and  arduous  cram,  until 
the  average  student  becomes  fairly  surfeited  with  the  very 
masterpieces  of  literature  and  as  thoroly  cured  of  any  taste  for 
the  classics  as  the  Israelites  were  of  any  partiality  for  manna. 
The  transfer  of  a  large  proportion,  if  not  of  the  entire  classical 
training  from  the  culture  period  of  college  life  to  the  more 
purely  disciplinary  period  of  school  life,  is  also  one  of  the  most 
conspicuous  illustrations  of  what  has  been  spoken  of  above  as 
retrogression  in  the  guise  of  progress. 

Happily,  however,  expression  is  the  one  direction  in  which 
a  substantial  advance  has  been  made  in  American  college  edu- 
cation in  the  last  two  decades.  Under  wise  leadership,  in  this 
art  we  far  outclass  the  Germans,  but  still  lag  behind  the  French. 
If  we  are  gaining  expression,  all  the  more  need  to  follow  more 
ardently  the  "  Glassian  precept "  to  gather  our  ideas  and 
harvest  our  observations,  so  that  we  may  bring  them  forth 
into  the  final  stage  of  original  production. 

The  factor  of  production 

"  I  do  not  propose  for  a  moment  to  invite  you  to  blink  the  fact  that  our 
huge  Anglo-Saxon  array  of  producers  and  readers — and  especially  our  vast 
cis-Atlantic  multitude — presents  production  uncontrolled,  production  un- 
touched by  criticism,  unguided,  unlighted,  uninstructed,  unashamed  on  a 
scale  that  is  really  a  new  thing  in  the  world.  It  is  all  a  complete  reversal 
of  any  proportion,  between  the  elements,  that  was  ever  seeivbefore." — The 
Lesson  of  Balzac,  HENRY  JAMES. 

The  stirring  appeal  and  command  of  Carlyle  for  production 
should  be  carved  in  stone  over  the  portals  of  every  school, 
college,  and  university,  and  embodied  in  the  precepts  of  every 
teacher,  because  production,  as  our  foremost  intellectual  service 


24  Educational  Review  [June 

to  God  and  to  man,  and  as  the  end  of  the  whole  educational 
system,  should  be  prepared  for  by  instilling  the  true  modern 
spirit  into  every  course  in  school  and  college. 

The  word  is  used  advisedly  for  all  activities  of  the  artisan, 
as  well  as  of  the  artist,  because  there  are  as  many  who  can 
produce  in  some  form  as  there  are  few  who  can  create. 

The  vast  majority  of  men  are  born  consumers ;  there  are  few 
who  are  either  instinct  with  the  desire  to  produce  or  who  have 
had  the  vast  hiatus  between  consumption  and  production 
impressed  upon  them.  Many  clever  people  fail  to  grasp  the 
distinction ;  in  the  metropolis  of  America,  for  instance,  we 
consume  vast  quantities  of  the  foreign  intellectual  product,  the 
music,  the  art,  the  literature;  and  the  metropolitan,  in  his 
heart,  thinks  that  we  are  a  musical,  an  artistic,  or  a  literary 
people;  whereas,  we  may  lay  small  claim  to  any  one  of  these 
attributes  until,  in  these  commodities  of  the  mind,  our  exports 
equal  or  exceed  in  quality  our  imports. 

There  is  in  America  at  large,  outside  of  the  great  field  of 
mechanical  endeavor,  a  singular  blindness  to  the  supreme 
importance  of  productive  and  creative  work,  to  the  fact,  as 
Henry  James  observes,  that  the  quality  of  our  production  in 
philosophy,  politics,  political  administration,  in  law,  medicine, 
literature,  in  pure  or  applied  science,  in  whatever  you  will,  is 
the  one  absolute  criterion  of  the  nation's  intellectual  standing. 
As  a  recent  writer  has  said,  invention  abounds,  discovery  is 
rare;  the  inventor  enjoys  a  national  reputation  and  a  niche  in 
the  Hall  of  Fame;  the  discoverer  often  enjoys  an  undisturbed 
obscurity,  and  looks  for  his  recognition,  not  in  his  own  country, 
but  in  the  older  countries  of  Europe,  where  the  value  of  dis- 
covery is  appreciated. 

There  is  a  similar  blindness,  even  where  there  is  less  excuse 
for  it,  in  our  schools,  colleges,  and  universities,  as  to  the  pro- 
longed, broad,  and  profound  training  which  must  precede  and 
accompany  production  in  any  branch  of  human  endeavor. 
Again,  we  may  quote  from  Suess's  farewell  address : 

"In  the  course  of  the  years  I  have  seen  and  experienced  much.  In  the 
beginning  a  man  has  honestly  to  endeavor  with  zeal,  and  with  certain  re- 
strictions upon  himself,  to  learn  the  detail  ;  and  sometimes  the  hair  whitens 


1906]  The  seven  factors  of  education  25 

before  he  is  in  a  position  to  obtain  a  general  view  and  to  risk  a  first  syn- 
thetic attempt.  This  first  step  to  synthesis  is,  however,  the  deciding  step 
in  the  life  of  the  inquirer.  Soon  he  notes  that  his  judgment  obtains  more 
consideration  among  his  colaborers  ;  he  becomes  more  careful  and  con- 
servative with  the  same  ;  and  finally  the  hour  arrives  in  which  his  soul  is 
filled  with  the  highest  satisfaction,  because  he  has  been  able  to  add  to 
human  knowledge  some  new  view  or  a  new  fact— a  feeling  over  against 
which  everything  naturally  vanishes  that  the  outer  world  is  able  to  offer  in 
acknowledgment. " 

The  initial  step  in  the  schooling  for  production  is  what  is 
familiarly  known  as  the  original  exercise,  which  may  begin  in 
the  kindergarten  and  terminate  in  the  most  advanced  laboratory 
— the  whole  centrifugal  process  is  the  same  in  kind,  while  it 
differs  infinitely  in  degree.  In  classics,  it  is  the  turning  of 
English  into  Latin  and  Greek ;  in  mathematics,  it  is  the  original 
problem;  in  English,  it  is  the  theme;  in  science,  the  induction 
from  the  observed  experiment,  however  simple;  in  brief,  it  is 
the  outflow  from  the  mind,  rather  than  the  inflow  to  the  mind ; 
the  acquisition  of  the  centrifugal,  rather  than  the  centripetal 
power.  Thus  are  taken  the  rudimentary,  the  intermediate,  as 
well  as  all  the  successive  steps  from  the  simplest  to  the  very 
highest  grades  of  production.  I  fancy  the  instinct  that  this 
is  the  real  purpose  and  end  of  education  has  been  the  more 
or  less  unconscious  inspiration  of  every  great  teacher  of  all 
time.  It  is  the  most  difficult  part  of  education.  It  is  the  point 
where  students  rebel  most.  It  is  the  point  where  the  largest 
number  of  teachers  fail.  It  is  the  method  which  is  most  diffi- 
cult to  prescribe.  It  is  the  fine  memory  bringing  the  highest 
collegiate  honors  and  standing,  combined  with  the  inability  to 
produce,  which  results  in  the  barren  after-life  and  wonder  as 
to  the  worth  of  the  first  diploma.  It  is  far  easier  to  compel  a 
student  to  read  six  books  of  Homer  than  to  train  him  to  turn 
one  page  of  English  properly  into  Greek;  it  is  far  easier  to 
learn  by  rote  Tennyson's  In  memoriain  than  to  produce  one 
line  worthy  of  a  place  in  that  great  poem;  it  is  far  easier  to 
memorize  Darwin's  entire  Origin  of  species  than  to  devise  a 
single  new  biological  experiment  of  real  value. 

Efficiency,  constructiveness,  productiveness  are  the  ascending- 
democratic  species  of  the  aristocratic  genus  creation.  There 


26  Educational  Review  [June 

are  corresponding  gradations  in  the  training  of  the  efficient 
man,  of  the  constructive  man,  of  the  productive  man,  leading 
to  that  of  the  creative  man — the  same  in  kind,  but  of  great 
difference  in  degree.  The  grade  is  always  determined  by  the 
nature  and  response  of  the  mind  itself  to  the  opportunities  or 
intellectual  and  social  environment  which  is  offered  to  the 
mind. 

Even  the  centripetal  system  of  education  cannot  crush  out 
the  passion  for  creative  work  which  is  born  in  some  men  and 
women,  but  since  the  mission  of  education  is  itself  production, 
it  must  produce  the  producers,  it  must  discover  them  and  train 
them  to  the  highest,  as  well  as  to  the  intermediate  or  the  lower, 
planes  of  creative  work.  Once  inoculated  with  this  virus, 
education  enjoys  a  new  vitality,  an  immunity  to  ennui;  the 
centrifugal  power,  inborn  or  instilled,  turns  into  those  channels 
which  taste  and  opportunity  unfold;  into  science,  literature, 
theology,  law,  medicine,  commerce,  manufacture,  politics. 
Conceit  is  checked  and  humility  engendered  by  learning  what 
has  been  achieved,  and  the  supreme  difficulty  attending 
achievement. 

What  I  am  contending  for  is  that  the  one  absolute  essential 
in  all  education  is  to  hold  out  the  centrifugal  life  of  originality, 
of  efficiency,  of  construction,  of  production,  of  creation,  as  the 
chief  end  of  education,  rather  than  to  make  any  of  the- subsidiary 
factors,  such  as  intellectual  morality,  or  learning,  or  reasoning, 
or  the  cultivation  of  taste,  or  the  power  of  expression,  ends  in 
themselves. 

Let  master  and  student  be  impatient  of  the  systems  which 
postpone  production  until  after  years  of  learning  and  acqui- 
sition thru  brilliancy  of  memory  give  a  false  sense  of  power. 
Rather  from  the  outset  learn  and  think  to  do.  Be  not  impa- 
tient of  the  slowness  of  the  process  of  acquiring  either  the 
power  of  production  or  of  the  many  complex  factors  which 
enter  into  it. 

This  is  an  outline  of  the  universal  principles  which  illumi- 
nate the  largest,  as  well  as  the  most  detailed,  problems  of 
education. 


1906]  The  seven  factors  of  education  27 

Whatever  the  grade  of  instruction,  whatever  the  subject, 
whether  in  science  or  literature ;  whatever  the  choice  of  profes- 
sion, we  may  always  find  our  path  lighted  by  the  same  signals, 
and  ask  whether  a  symmetrical  development  of  the  seven 
factors  is  being  brought  about.  Every  great  subject  has 
within  it  the  possibility  of  developing  the  seven  factors,  but  a 
combination  of  subjects,  selected  with  reference  to  their  special 
influences,  may  bring  about  this  development  to  the  greatest 
advantage,  for  there  are  studies  to  stimulate  the  imagination, 
others  to  develop  the  memory  and  power  of  learning,  others  to 
facilitate  observation,  others  reason,  and  so  on.  The  universal 
illuminants  remain  both  as  the  guide  and  the  single  basis  of 
criticism  of  the  teacher,  of  the  course,  of  the  curriculum,  of  the 
institution,  of  the  student  himself,  of  his  most  elementary 
thoughts,  and  of  his  most  advanced  original  contributions. 

HENRY  FAIRFIELD  OSBORN 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 
EDUCATION  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  LIBRARY 

This  book*  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


JUL  26  1966 


f.0.1  PSYCH. 

I.IBRARY; 


Form  L9-10m-8,'65(F6230s8)4939A 


UCLA-ED/PSYCH  Library 

LB  875  081s 


L  005  625  015  2 


